Barbieland
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
132.81985
Summary
In this episode, we discuss the iconic movie "Barbie" and the role of toxic masculinity in it, and how it relates to our own toxic masculinity. We also talk about feminism and its role in the movie.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
I'm curious, in regards to Barbie, where you said earlier you think it's about fearing your own desires, like that's the ultimate horror.
00:00:35.440
And Barbie is the star of the show, and she has the dream house, and he's riding sidecar to Barbie.
00:00:45.080
And then he leaves Barbie land, and he enters the real world.
00:00:50.640
And I guess kind of ironically, he learns about the joys of patriarchy from a library, from criticisms of patriarchy.
00:01:03.100
And then I think in this way that is really realistic, he embraces this kind of dark version of being a man.
00:01:16.180
He becomes Andrew Tate, in effect, but a bit of a lovable Andrew Tate.
00:01:21.040
And it's just bro-ing out, and what is he's like, do you want to be my non-committal, long-distance girlfriend or something?
00:01:34.120
So, it's just basically like, do you want to be my sex friend?
00:01:43.240
And I think so many of these kids are like this to stay, because look, everything's screwed up.
00:01:52.520
But then your response to that is to almost become the parody of masculinity.
00:02:01.800
Like, kids in suburban middle school are watching Andrew Tate, and they're going into class and, like, talking to their teacher, like, no, bitch, I don't do no homework.
00:02:15.640
And, you know, like, the teacher is like, Jimmy, your father is an accountant who's an upstanding member of the community.
00:02:36.200
It's actually, he just, he actually loves Barbie.
00:02:40.920
And he becomes, and yeah, he says, I'm Knuff, or I am Ken.
00:02:47.300
But, like, his secret fantasy is what he's fearing.
00:02:51.600
So, he actually wants, he actually loves Barbie and maybe wants to have a mundane relationship with her.
00:02:58.520
But he fears that reality and thus indulges in toxic masculinity of the most, you know, worst but maybe most hilarious kind.
00:03:15.440
And I think with Barbie, I would, I mean, I found it interesting that at the end of the day, like, how do I say this?
00:03:29.540
At the end of the day, the men were still fighting over the women.
00:03:32.600
And that was their secret plan to destroy the patriarchy, is to get them fighting each other.
00:03:40.320
But in that sense, they did the most, they created a society that was at its most ancient or most traditional, you could say.
00:03:50.820
Like, you know, like, the rape of the Sabian women, you know, this famous painting and all that kind of stuff.
00:03:58.540
That idea of, like, my tribe, we fight your tribe, we take your tribes, women folk, they become our tribe.
00:04:09.220
Like, it's the most, like, it's the most basic quality of civilization.
00:04:16.920
Because, I mean, all civilization is based on a lie.
00:04:23.720
You know, it, you can have a functioning order, but it's ultimately on a grave, a graveyard.
00:04:33.980
Like, even America, we have this, you know, functioning liberal order with citizenship, etc.
00:04:39.360
It's ultimately based on a crime of disobeying our legitimate authorities.
00:04:49.740
That was the exception that, but then now we can do it.
00:04:53.000
And, and so I feel like maybe, I mean, maybe this is kind of a, well, this is a bit of a subversive reading, but there's, there's the, there's the objective fantasy that I think covers over a deeper fantasy.
00:05:07.440
So there's the objective fantasy of, like, neoliberal feminism, which is that, look, women can be in the Supreme Court, or women can win a Nobel Prize, or women can be doctors, etc.
00:05:18.960
But maybe that's a mask hiding a deeper fantasy, which is we want men fighting over us.
00:05:36.220
Yeah, okay, that's, that's an interesting take of the movie.